Motor Schema Research Articles

The "What" and "How" of Pantomime Actions.

Pantomimes are human actions that simulate ideas, objects, and events, commonly used in conversation, performance art, and gesture-based interfaces for computing and controlling robots. Yet, their underlying neurocognitive mechanisms are not well understood. In this review, we examine pantomimes through two parallel lines of research: (1) the two visual systems (TVS) framework for visually guided action, and (2) the neuropsychological literature on limb apraxia. Historically, the TVS framework has considered pantomime actions as expressions of conscious perceptual processing in the ventral stream, but an emerging view is that they are jointly influenced by ventral and dorsal stream processing. Within the apraxia literature, pantomimes were historically viewed as learned motor schemas, but there is growing recognition that they include creative and improvised actions. Both literatures now recognize that pantomimes are often created spontaneously, sometimes drawing on memory and always requiring online cognitive control. By highlighting this convergence of ideas, we aim to encourage greater collaboration across these two research areas, in an effort to better understand these uniquely human behaviors.

Sleep does not influence schema-facilitated motor memory consolidation.

Novel information is rapidly learned when it is compatible with previous knowledge. This "schema" effect, initially described for declarative memories, was recently extended to the motor memory domain. Importantly, this beneficial effect was only observed 24 hours-but not immediately-following motor schema acquisition. Given the established role of sleep in memory consolidation, we hypothesized that sleep following the initial learning of a schema is necessary for the subsequent rapid integration of novel motor information. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of diurnal and nocturnal sleep on schema-mediated motor sequence memory consolidation. In Experiment 1, participants first learned an 8-element motor sequence through repeated practice (Session 1). They were then afforded a 90-minute nap opportunity (N = 25) or remained awake (N = 25) before learning a second motor sequence (Session 2) which was highly compatible with that learned prior to the sleep/wake interval. Experiment 2 was similar; however, Sessions 1 and 2 were separated by a 12-hour interval that included nocturnal sleep (N = 28) or only wakefulness (N = 29). For both experiments, we found no group differences in motor sequence performance (reaction time and accuracy) following the sleep/wake interval. Furthermore, in Experiment 1, we found no correlation between sleep features (non-REM sleep duration, spindle and slow wave activity) and post-sleep behavioral performance. The results of this research suggest that integration of novel motor information into a cognitive-motor schema does not specifically benefit from post-learning sleep.

Auditory Cueing of Pre-Learned Skills and Role of Subcortical Information Processing to Maximize Rehabilitative Outcomes Bridging Science and Music-Based Interventions.

Auditory entrainment of motor function is a fundamental tool in neurologic music therapy with many studies demonstrating improved clinical outcomes in people with movement disorders such as Parkinson's Disease, acquired brain injuries, and stroke. However, the specific mechanisms of action within neural networks and cortical regions that are aroused and influenced by auditory entrainment still need to be identified. This paper draws from some contemporary neuroscience studies that indicate the role of the cerebellum and other subcortical systems in modulating pre-learned motor schema and proposes a possible rationale for the success of auditory entrainment within neurologic music therapy.

Linked auditory and motor patterns in the improvisation vocabulary of an artist-level jazz pianist

Improvising musicians possess a stored library of musical patterns forming the basis for their improvisations. According to a prominent theoretical framework by Pressing (1988), this library includes linked auditory and motor information. Though examples of libraries of melodic patterns have been shown in extant recordings by some improvising musicians, the underlying motor component has not been experimentally investigated nor related to its auditory counterparts. Here we analyzed a large corpus of ∼100,000 notes from improvisations by one artist-level jazz pianist recorded during 11 live performances with audience. We compared the library identified from these recordings to a control corpus consisting of improvisations by 24 different advanced jazz pianists. In addition to pitch, our recordings included accurate micro-timing and key velocity (i.e., force) data. Following a previously validated procedure, this information was used to identify the underlying motor patterns through correlations between relative timing and velocity between notes in different iterations of the same pitch pattern. A computational model was, furthermore, used to estimate the information content and generated entropy exhibited by recurring pitch patterns with high and low timing and velocity correlations as perceived by a stylistically enculturated expert listener. Though both corpora contained a large number of recurring patterns, the single-player corpus showed stronger evidence that pitch patterns were linked to motor programs in that within-pattern timing and velocity correlations were significantly higher compared to the control corpus. Even when controlling for potentially greater baseline levels of motor self-consistency in the single-player corpus, this effect remained significant for velocity correlations. Amongst recurring 5-tone pitch patterns, those exhibiting more consistent motor schema also used less idiomatic pitch transitions that were both more unexpected and generated more uncertain expectations in enculturated experts than less consistently repeated patterns. Interestingly, we only found partial evidence for fixed pattern boundaries as predicted by the Pressing model and therefore suggest an expanded view in which the beginning and ends of idiomatic audio-motor patterns are not always clear-cut. Our results indicate that the library of melodic patterns may be idiosyncratic to the individual improviser and relies both on motor programming and predictive processing to promote stylistic distinctiveness.

Embodying Language through Gestures: Residuals of Motor Memories Modulate Motor Cortex Excitability during Abstract Words Comprehension.

There is a debate about whether abstract semantics could be represented in a motor domain as concrete language. A contextual association with a motor schema (action or gesture) seems crucial to highlighting the motor system involvement. The present study with transcranial magnetic stimulation aimed to assess motor cortex excitability changes during abstract word comprehension after conditioning word reading to a gesture execution with congruent or incongruent meaning. Twelve healthy volunteers were engaged in a lexical-decision task responding to abstract words or meaningless verbal stimuli. Motor cortex (M1) excitability was measured at different after-stimulus intervals (100, 250, or 500 ms) before and after an associative-learning training where the execution of the gesture followed word processing. Results showed a significant post-training decrease in hand motor evoked potentials at an early processing stage (100 ms) in correspondence to words congruent with the gestures presented during the training. We hypothesized that traces of individual semantic memory, combined with training effects, induced M1 inhibition due to the redundancy of evoked motor representation. No modulation of cortical excitability was found for meaningless or incongruent words. We discuss data considering the possible implications in research to understand the neural basis of language development and language rehabilitation protocols.

Jam Mitigation for Autonomous Convoys via Behavior-Based Robotics

Autonomous ground vehicle convoys heavily rely on wireless communications to perform leader-follower operations, which make them particularly vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks such as jamming. To mitigate the effects of jamming on autonomous convoys, this paper proposes a behavior-based architecture, called the Behavior Manager, that utilizes layered costmaps and vector field histogram motion planning to implement motor schema behaviors. Using our proposed Behavior Manager, multiple behaviors can be created to form a convoy controller assemblage capable of continuing convoy operations while under a jamming attack. To measure the performance of our proposed solution to jammed autonomous convoying, simulated convoy runs are performed on multiple path plans under different types of jamming attacks, using both the assemblage and a basic delayed follower convoy controller. Extensive simulation results demonstrated that our proposed solution, the Behavior Manager, can be leveraged to dramatically improve the robustness of autonomous convoys when faced with jamming attacks and can be further extended due to its modular nature to combat other types of attacks through the development of additional behaviors and assemblages. When comparing the performance of the Behavior Manager convoy to that of the basic convoy controller, improvements were seen across all jammer types and path plans, ranging from 13.33% to 86.61% reductions in path error.

Effects of Variable Practice on Kinematics and Accuracy of Throwing in Boys with Developmental Coordination Disorder

Many children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) cannot throw, which often prevents them from taking part in age-appropriate activities. The present research examined the degree to which variable practice, embedded in the Motor Schema Theory (Schmidt, 1975), would positively affect movement effectiveness, and coinciding accuracy, as well and parametrization of spatial and temporal aspects of control. Nine boys diagnosed with DCD (M = 10.7 years, SD = 1.0) participated in a pre-test, ten 30 minute training sessions, post-test, and a transfer test. Only pre- and post-tests involved kinematic data collection and measurement of accuracy. The variable practice involved throwing a tennis ball from a distance of 5 meters at 3 different targets (40 cm vs 35 cm vs 25 cm), positioned in three different locations. The transfer test was presented in a new environment with novel conditions. Results reveled improvement in movement effectiveness, at the group level, however when individual data was examined not all participants benefited to the same degree, especially when the transfer test was considered. All participants improved in regards to their accuracy. The changes in the outcome coincided with changes in spatial parametrization at the elbow, but not the shoulder. Also, higher velocity of the ball and angular velocity at the elbow were evident. From the clinical standpoint, the present study highlighted the importance of introducing context relevant variability in the learning program, however the decline in performance in the transfer test indicates that more research is warranted to understand the lasting effects on motor schema. 

Setting the Stage for Speech Production: Infants Prefer Listening to Speech Sounds With Infant Vocal Resonances.

Current models of speech development argue for an early link between speech production and perception in infants. Recent data show that young infants (at 4-6 months) preferentially attend to speech sounds (vowels) with infant vocal properties compared to those with adult vocal properties, suggesting the presence of special "memory banks" for one's own nascent speech-like productions. This study investigated whether the vocal resonances (formants) of the infant vocal tract are sufficient to elicit this preference and whether this perceptual bias changes with age and emerging vocal production skills. We selectively manipulated the fundamental frequency (f0 ) of vowels synthesized with formants specifying either an infant or adult vocal tract, and then tested the effects of those manipulations on the listening preferences of infants who were slightly older than those previously tested (at 6-8 months). Unlike findings with younger infants (at 4-6 months), slightly older infants in Experiment 1 displayed a robust preference for vowels with infant formants over adult formants when f0 was matched. The strength of this preference was also positively correlated with age among infants between 4 and 8 months. In Experiment 2, this preference favoring infant over adult formants was maintained when f0 values were modulated. Infants between 6 and 8 months of age displayed a robust and distinct preference for speech with resonances specifying a vocal tract that is similar in size and length to their own. This finding, together with data indicating that this preference is not present in younger infants and appears to increase with age, suggests that nascent knowledge of the motor schema of the vocal tract may play a role in shaping this perceptual bias, lending support to current models of speech development. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.17131805.

The Paradox of Virtual Embodiment: The Body Schema in Virtual Reality Aesthetic Experience

"New technologies implied in art creation and exhibition are modifying the traditional landmarks on which aesthetics has always focused. In particular, Virtual Reality artworks call the body into question when it comes to living a bodily experience within exhibitions accessible through technological tools that expand the human body’s capabilities and motor potential. The body's status is challenged in its traditional unity, that of a subject of experience living in a world where the spatial configuration is relatively constant. Conversely, in Virtual Reality, the spatial aspect is novel to our body which needs to adapt to unpredicted and disorientating motor schemas. Therefore, the Virtual Reality aesthetic experience takes place into a novel configuration for the human body: hybrid and split into the virtual realm. Keywords: Aesthetics; Virtual Reality; Embodiment; Digital art; Bodily awareness "

The cortical organization of writing sequence: evidence from observing Chinese characters in motion.

Writing sequences play an important role in handwriting of Chinese characters. However, little is known regarding the integral brain patterns and network mechanisms of processing Chinese character writing sequences. The present study decoded brain patterns during observing Chinese characters in motion by using multi-voxel pattern analysis, meta-analytic decoding analysis, and extended unified structural equation model. We found that perception of Chinese character writing sequence recruited brain regions not only for general motor schema processing, i.e., the right inferior frontal gyrus, shifting, and inhibition functions, i.e., the right postcentral gyrus and bilateral pre-SMA/dACC, but also for sensorimotor functions specific for writing sequences. More importantly, these brain regions formed a cooperatively top-down brain network where information was transmitted from brain regions for general motor schema processing to those specific for writing sequences. These findings not only shed light on the neural mechanisms of Chinese character writing sequences, but also extend the hierarchical control model on motor schema processing.

Expert Event Segmentation of Dance Is Genre-Specific and Primes Verbal Memory.

By chunking continuous streams of action into ordered, discrete, and meaningful units, event segmentation facilitates motor learning. While expertise in the observed repertoire reduces the frequency of event borders, generalization of this effect to unfamiliar genres of dance and among other sensorimotor experts (musicians, athletes) remains unknown, and was the first aim of this study. Due to significant overlap in visuomotor, language, and memory processing brain networks, the second aim of this study was to investigate whether visually priming expert motor schemas improves memory for words related to one’s expertise. A total of 112 participants in six groups (ballet, Bharatanatyam, and “other” dancers, athletes, musicians, and non-experts) segmented a ballet dance, a Bharatanatyam dance, and a non-dance control sequence. To test verbal memory, participants performed a retrieval-induced forgetting task between segmentation blocks. Dance, instrument, and sport word categories were included to probe the second study aim. Results of the event segmentation paradigm clarify that previously-established expert segmentation effects are specific to familiar genres of dance, and do not transfer between different types of experts or to non-dance sequences. Greater recall of dance category words among ballet and Bharatanatyam dancers provides novel evidence for improved verbal memory primed by activating familiar sensorimotor representations.

What should we do with our gut?

ABSTRACT This article explores how breakthrough neuroscientific research regarding the Microbiome-Gut-Brain-Axis (MGBA) resonates with Catherine Malabou’s discussions of a delocalised, decentralised, plastic brain. Inspired by Malabou’s materialist methodology, as well as her confrontation of neuroscientific and psychoanalytic paradigms, the article unpacks the imbrication of symbolic and neuro-microbiological treatments of the gut and its excreta. Interlacing the thought of Julia Kristeva, Melanie Klein and Malabou alongside current MGBA research and critical studies of science and technology, I reveal how symbolic and microbial transmissions in early childhood development reflect a multimodal and multitemporal formation that challenges the established imaginary associated with functional gut and subject development. Secondly, I consider how MGBA research bears upon questions of difference, examining its further materialisation of Malabou’s otherness in a world without exteriority. Through this discussion I question the significance of this biological paradigm shift, as it disturbs notions of agency and the subject/environment distinction, opening to pressing ethical questions at this moment in human history. Through these varied interrogations and provocations, I provide a preliminary window into the potential of MGBA research to enable new departures for thinking the fragmentary movement of form and time underpinning Malabou’s motor schema of plasticity.

Practice variability promotes an external focus of attention and enhances motor skill learning

Variability in practice has been shown to enhance motor skill learning. Benefits of practice variability have been attributed to motor schema formation (variable versus constant practice), or more effortful information processing (random versus blocked practice). We hypothesized that, among other mechanisms, greater practice variability might promote an external focus of attention on the intended movement effect, while less variability would be more conducive to a less effective internal focus on body movements. In Experiment 1, the learning of a throwing task was enhanced by variable versus constant practice, and variable group participants reported focusing more on the distance to the target (external focus), while constant group participants focused more on their posture (internal focus). In Experiment 2, golf putting was learned more effectively with a random compared with a blocked practice schedule. Furthermore, random group learners reported using a more effective distal external focus (i.e., distance to the target) to a greater extent, whereas blocked group participants used a less effective proximal focus (i.e., putter) more often. While attentional focus was assessed through questionnaires in the first two experiments, learners in Experiment 3 were asked to report their current attentional focus at any time during practice. Again, the learning of a throwing task was more effective after random relative to blocked practice. Also, random practice learners reported using more external focus cues, while in blocked practice participants used more internal focus cues. The findings suggest that the attentional foci induced by different practice schedules might be at least partially responsible for the learning differences.

'See Me, Feel Me': Prismatic Adaptation of an Alien Limb Ameliorates Spatial Neglect in a Patient Affected by Pathological Embodiment.

Pathological embodiment (E+) is a specific contralesional delusion of body ownership, observed following brain damage, in which patients embody someone else’s arm and its movements within their own body schema whenever the contralesional ‘alien’ arm is presented in a body-congruent position (i.e., 1st person perspective and aligned with the patient’s shoulder). This disorder is often associated with spatial neglect, a neurological syndrome in which patients are unaware of stimuli presented in the contralesional (often the left) space. Capitalizing on previous evidence demonstrating that prismatic adaptation of the ipsilesional arm to right-deviating prisms is effective in ameliorating neglect symptoms, here we investigated whether such amelioration also occurs in E+ patients with neglect when prismatic training is performed by the ‘alien’ embodied arm. Four left neglect patients (one with and three without pathological embodiment) underwent visuomotor prismatic training performed by an ‘alien’ arm. Specifically, while patients were wearing prismatic goggles shifting the visual field rightward, a co-experimenter’s left arm presented in a body-congruent perspective was repeatedly moved toward visual targets by another examiner. In a control condition, the co-experimenter’s arm was moved toward the targets from a body-incongruent position (i.e., 3rd person perspective). Neglect symptoms were assessed before and after training through paper-and-pencil tasks. In the E+ patient, neglect improved significantly more in 1st than in 3rd person perspective training, suggesting that prismatic adaptation of the ‘alien’ embodied arm is effective in modulating spatial representation. Conversely, for control E- patients (not embodying the ‘alien’ arm), we observed more limited improvements following training. These findings indicate that the ‘alien’ embodied arm is so deeply embedded in the patient body and motor schema that adaptation to prismatic lenses can affect multiple processing stages, from low level sensory-motor correspondences, to higher level body, motor and spatial maps, similarly as it occurs in normal subjects and neglect patients without pathological embodiment.

Embodying combat: How boxers make sense of their ‘conversations of gestures’

This essay offers an ethnography of the ‘conversations of gestures’ that occur between boxers during training fights or ‘sparring’. By showing how these situations are embodied, it elaborates a sociology of the senses and meaning as it relates to these ordeals. In addition to considering the boxers and their ‘culture in interaction’, the essay reexamines a number of the assumptions embraced by sociologists of ‘habitus’ and ‘practical sense’. While a boxer's knowledge lies first and foremost in his fists, the fight also triggers a vital consciousness of the situation – a body image – that, when articulated with habitualized motor schemas, makes reflection and strategy central to the action itself. To deny the possibility of such boxing reflexivity would mean describing the fighter as a ‘cultural dope’ whose capacity for reflection is supplanted by the acquisition of fighting reflexes: this is what is entailed by the concept of ‘boxing habitus’. Yet this emphasis on the body's automatic mechanisms reduces the sociology of practice to the socialization of body schemas, without being able to connect them to body images. The latter is what this essay seeks to reintroduce into analysis.

What the Jeweller\u2019s Hand Tells the Jeweller\u2019s Brain: Tool Use, Creativity and Embodied Cognition

The notion that human activity can be characterised in terms of dynamic systems is a well-established alternative to motor schema approaches. Key to a dynamic systems approach is the idea that a system seeks to achieve stable states in the face of perturbation. While such an approach can apply to physical activity, it can be challenging to accept that dynamic systems also describe cognitive activity. In this paper, we argue that creativity, which could be construed as a ‘cognitive’ activity par excellence, arises from the dynamic systems involved in jewellery making. Knowing whether an action has been completed to a ‘good’ standard is a significant issue in considering acts in creative disciplines. When making a piece of jewellery, there a several criteria which can define ‘good’. These are not only the aesthetics of the finished piece but also the impact of earlier actions on subsequent ones. This suggests that the manner in which an action is coordinated is influenced by the criteria by which the product is judged. We see these criteria as indicating states for the system, e.g. in terms of a space of ‘good’ outcomes and a complementary space of ‘bad’ outcomes. The skill of the craftworker is to navigate this space of available states in such a way as to minimise risk, effort and other costs and maximise benefit and quality of the outcome. In terms of postphenomonology, this paper explores Ihde’s human-technology relations and relates these to the concepts developed here.

Trancing: applying evolution's cognitive adaptation via web art/music

For whatever reason the prefrontal cortex mutated in our ancestors. Taken in isolation, cortical dominance would easily be a detriment to fitness. Whatever central nervous systems animals without such cortices employ, interpretations of what one senses, and motor schema for reacting are formulated in an unambiguous, monological manner (though we do not claim there need be any 'language of thought'). The trance state is but one means of coordinating conflicting signals from the neocortex ('new brain') and the paleoencephalon ('old brain'). We discuss how trance relates to ritual, and thus to artefact-as-art (both impulses for making and attending thereto). We thus consider the impulse for art, as with hunger or a sex drive, as a means evolution has provided for 'fine tuning' the minds of Homo sapiens.

Trancing: applying evolution's cognitive adaptation via web art/music

For whatever reason the prefrontal cortex mutated in our ancestors. Taken in isolation, cortical dominance would easily be a detriment to fitness. Whatever central nervous systems animals without such cortices employ, interpretations of what one senses, and motor schema for reacting are formulated in an unambiguous, monological manner (though we do not claim there need be any 'language of thought'). The trance state is but one means of coordinating conflicting signals from the neocortex ('new brain') and the paleoencephalon ('old brain'). We discuss how trance relates to ritual, and thus to artefact-as-art (both impulses for making and attending thereto). We thus consider the impulse for art, as with hunger or a sex drive, as a means evolution has provided for 'fine tuning' the minds of Homo sapiens.

High- and Low-Load Resistance Training: Interpretation and Practical Application of Current Research Findings.

Our current state of knowledge regarding the load (lighter or heavier) lifted in resistance training programmes that will result in 'optimal' strength and hypertrophic adaptations is unclear. Despite this, position stands and recommendations are made based on, we propose, limited evidence to lift heavier weights. Here we discuss the state of evidence on the impact of load and how it, as a single variable, stimulates adaptations to take place and whether evidence for recommending heavier loads is available, well-defined, currently correctly interpreted or has been overlooked. Areas of discussion include electromyography amplitude, in vivo and in vitro methods of measuring hypertrophy, and motor schema and skill acquisition. The present piece clarifies to trainers and trainees the impact of these variables by discussing interpretation of synchronous and sequential motor unit recruitment and revisiting the size principle, poor agreement between whole-muscle cross-sectional area (CSA) and biopsy-determined changes in myofibril CSA, and neural adaptations around task specificity. Our opinion is that the practical implications of being able to self-select external load include reducing the need for specific facility memberships, motivating older persons or those who might be less confident using heavy loads, and allowing people to undertake home- or field-based resistance training intervention strategies that might ultimately improve exercise adherence.

Machine vision and fuzzy logic-based navigation control of a goal-oriented mobile robot

This work addresses a new goal oriented navigation framework for autonomous system. In the proposed work, a hybrid control system, comprising deliberative and behavior-based architectures, has been developed. Deliberative layer employs a monocular vision camera to obtain the position of the goal while behavior-based framework makes use of the motor schema technique for safe navigation. Fuzzy logic is also adopted in order to enhance the performance of the navigation system. A rigorous series of experiments has been conducted using two navigation methods, which are the proposed control system and the conventional navigation technique utilizing the potential field method for achieving the desired goals. Both systems are implemented in the simulated experiments using Stage simulator. By employing these two approaches, it is possible to present a comparison of the navigation results between the systems utilizing different navigation techniques. The experimental results reveal that the proposed system produces better navigation performance compared to the conventional method in terms of safe and successful navigation, with a smoother trajectory and consistent motion.